


on the inherent homoeroticism of cake decoration

by Welcoming_Disaster



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 8 (2018), Christmas, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Team Feels, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28076658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welcoming_Disaster/pseuds/Welcoming_Disaster
Summary: “She’s matchmaking, Barton,” Carol sighed.“We,” Thor corrected, thumping himself hard in the chest, “art matchmaking.”“Who, Cap n’ Tony?” Clint asked, his mouth full.“Cap and Tony,” Janet confirmed, cutting herself a thin slice of egg and gently depositing it on her whole grain avocado toast, “it’s getting ridiculous.”“Wait, I thought they were—“ Clint frowned, glancing around the room as though to confirm. Nothing but confused faces met his questioning gaze. “Huh. I really thought they were fucking.”“And there is the crux of the issue,” Jess licked a bit of spaghetti sauce off her lip.“Aye,” agreed Thor, “there’s rub.”-----------The team tries to set up Steve and Tony. Things don't go as planned.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Carol Danvers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 131
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	on the inherent homoeroticism of cake decoration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [airplanejam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airplanejam/gifts).



> Prompt: "It's the holiday season and the team has decided that this has gone on for too long - Steve and Tony need to get together (or get BACK together??) after too many years of pining. Lots of scheming and matchmaking shenanigans by the Avengers are the result."
> 
> I hope you like it!

“Alright,” Janet said, delicately sprinkling crushed red pepper and nutritional yeast over her oven-baked eggs, “this ends now.” 

Clint, who had only just now ducked into the kitchen, and who was already taking a swig straight from the milk carton, looked up guiltily, clearly thinking that it was his behavior that was going to be soon put to end. “What did I do?” 

“Not you,” Jess Drew, who did not subscribe to the idea that breakfast was constrained to breakfast foods, swirled helping of yesterday’s spaghetti onto her fork. “Mom and Dad.” 

The Avengers, both active duty and retired, barring those who had family commitments (which, unfortunately, was not a great number of them) had come back to the Mountain for Christmas. Now, on the morning of Christmas Eve, the atmosphere was about as energized as it could be. Gossip was spreading quickly between the older crew still on the team and those who had left. Traditions were being reestablished. Arm wrestling competitions and accompanying bets on arm wrestling competitions, were a near hourly event. 

All this to say, Carol thought, that was this was inevitable.

“What about them?” Clint asked, eating a handful of cheerios from the box. 

“She’s matchmaking, Barton,” Carol sighed. 

“We,” Thor said, thumping himself hard in the chest, “art matchmaking.” 

Carol reached over and plucked his bagel out of his hand. It smelled slightly singed, but was untoasted. More out of a desire to hurt his feelings than out of a desire for bagels, she took a bite. 

“Who, Cap n’ Tony?” Clint asked, his mouth full. 

“Cap and Tony,” Janet confirmed, cutting herself a thin slice of egg and gently depositing it on her whole grain avocado toast, “it’s getting ridiculous.” 

“Wait, I thought they were—“ Clint frowned, glancing around the room as though to confirm. Nothing but confused faces met his questioning gaze. “Huh. I really thought they were fucking.” 

“And there is the crux of the issue,” Jess licked a bit of spaghetti sauce off her lip. 

“Aye,” agreed Thor, “there’s rub.” 

Carol snorted, shaking her head, “They’ve got baggage, people. It’s not fair to come into your friends’ delicate homoerotic friendship and risk messing things up for both of them by interfering.” 

Jess rolled her eyes, slurping up another forkful of spaghetti. 

“Besides,” Carol added, “Cap’s straight.” 

Jess raised both eyebrows, not bothering to hide her skepticism, “Oh, and he’s told you that, has he?” 

“Well, no, but—“ 

“Where are they, anyways?” Interrupted Clint, glancing over his shoulder. 

“Tony’s buying me tampons,” Janet said, “you see, I having horrible cramps — awful! — and I’ve been,” she paused, making her brown eyes wide and innocent, “sooo embarrassed to ask anyone else. So the poor dear immediately offered.” 

“The gym,” Thor boomed, “is in awful disarray. Only our captain has been up to the task of setting it right again.” 

“This is premeditated, then,” Clint assessed, slightly impressed.

“We need time to scheme,” Jess confirmed, “get everyone on the same page. If you tattle, Danvers…” 

“What are you, ten?” Carol eyed Jess’s spaghetti-filled Tupperware and decided against trying to steal it, “I’m staying well out of it. Don’t come crying to me when it goes wrong.” 

“I’m taking bets on how this goes,” Jess said, pulling out a notebook, “Got Spider-Man and Logan down already. Betting pool’s broken up in a general success-failure and then smaller lots for more specific—“ 

“Really,” said Clint, though he was already pulling out his wallet, “you guys are sure this isn’t already a thing? I remember this being a thing.” 

“Nat said you hit your head in Peru,” Jess reached down from where she sat on the counter and ran her knuckles casually over the top of his head. “Could be you’ve dreamt it.” 

“Could be,” Clint said, doubtfully, “twenty on, uh—“ 

He peeked over her shoulder. 

“Twenty on one time under the mistletoe.” 

“A wise choice,” Thor said, clapping him hard on the shoulder. Clint spilled cereal on the floor. “Accept mine own bet for the same.” 

“What’s the plan of attack, here?” Clint asked.

Wanda entered the kitchen behind him, still in her little red nightgown, and pulled the fridge open to stare inside with a look of intense concentration. 

“There’s grapefruit,” Carol told her, offering over the fruit bowl. 

Wanda took the grapefruit. She looked tired, her eyelashes sticky with yesterday’s makeup and dark circles prominent under her eyes. Her voice was quiet when she spoke, subdued. “What are we talking about?” 

“They’re still on Cap and Tony.” Carol informed her. 

“Yeah, what’s the plan?” Clint repeated. 

“We’ve got a full bag, here,” Janet said, “Mistletoe’s obvious, but there’s a lot in our arsenal. Ditch them together at every opportunity. Talk to them about setting them up with people, really make them think about why neither of them’s gone on a real date in so long. Make sure it’s overheard, see if jealousy does the trick. Good old trip down the memory lane — I made photo albums. Make sure the gifts are sentimental. Thor’s on Steve; I’m handling Tony.” 

“I’ll back Thor on Steve,” Clint offered, “no offense to your emotional intelligence, big guy, but—“ 

“Blonds helping blonds,” Jess offered. 

“I’ll do damage control,” Carol said drily, cutting Wanda’s grapefruit for her. 

The door creaked open. Tony, already dressed in a dark business suit despite the early hour and the casual air around the Mountain, came into the room. He was sipping at a store-bought green smoothie and carried an opaque brown plastic bag. 

“You know,” he said, “if you all go silent when I walk in, I’m going to assume you’re talking about me. Here, your toothpaste.” 

Casually, he handed the bag over to Janet, who beamed and pecked him on cheek, “Thank you, dear.” 

Jess stifled a laugh. Wanda, who had been peering over her shoulder at the notebook, tapped one of her long red fingernails against something on the paper and stepped away. Momentarily distracted, Carol watched the hypnotic sway of her bright red nightgown. When she glanced up again, the team was making plans. 

“The good news,” Tony was saying, “is that we’ve got everything we need for proper meal. The bad news is that, well—” 

He was interrupted by Steve, who came in through the other side of the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge. The gym shirt he was wearing was sleeveless and slightly damp, and Carol was fairly sure she wasn’t the only one to automatically check out his arms. Tony, though, didn’t look; his eyes had landed on his smoothie the second Steve had entered the room, and he refused to glance up even at the sound of Steve blending raw eggs for breakfast. 

“The bad news,” he repeated, again, “is that the cook I had hired bailed last minute, Jarvis refuses to come out of retirement, and the only people I’ve been able to get on short notice are, like, super clearly Nazi spies.” 

“So you’re saying we’re cooking our own dinner.” Clint summarized. His hand immediately shot to his nose. “Not it.” 

Jess and Thor immediately followed suit. Wanda, looking apologetic, also slowly pressed her index finger to her nose. 

“Vizh can cook desserts,” Steve suggested, “I’ve seen him.” 

“I’m doing the desserts,” Tony said, cutting off the last syllable of Steve’s perhaps more severely than the suggestion warranted. 

“Vizh can do sides,” offered Wanda quietly, apparently not fussed about volunteering her ex husband’s time. 

“Sam and I could do the meats,” Steve said, as casual about volunteering Sam as Wanda had been about Vision. 

“You don’t season,” Clint said, popping another handful of cheerios into his mouth.

Steve shrugged, taking a sip from the egg-laden blender. It was the full sized blender, not the NutriBullet, but his comically large hands made it look almost natural. “That’s what Sam’s for.” 

“Did you get tofurkey?” Asked Wanda. 

“I got tofurkey,” Tony said, gesturing vaguely, “we’re grouping that with meats.” 

Steve frowned, cautious. “I don’t—“ 

“It says on the box,” Wanda reached over to pat him gently on the shoulder, “you’ll do fine.” 

“I’ll flit about,” Janet offered, clearly relieved to not have been trusted with any major food group, “chop a carrot here and there.” 

Tony turned to give her a fond smile, his eyes tinged with amusement, “I don’t know if I’d trust you with that, Van Dyne, after the salmon—“ 

Janet pouted. “They  _ really  _ should have had instructions on that. I’m probably neither the first nor the last, and, in fact…” 

She trailed off, not particularly invested in her own whining, and took another delicate little bite of her toast. 

“So, dinner’s at six,” Tony said, something of his leading-the-team inflection about it, “we’ll start cooking at three. Everyone who’s not cooking is in charge of making sure the place isn’t a wreck. Make sure to have your secret Santa gifts wrapped and under the tree by dinner time.” 

This drew a confused murmur from the little crowd.

“What tree?” Carol asked, stepping outside to peer into the sparsely decorated dining hall to make sure she hadn’t missed it. No Christmas tree. 

“The bonsai,” Tony told her, and turned to face the other Avengers, “work with me here, people.” 

“We could put lights on the little guy,” Jessica offered, smoothly stepping out of the living room, “it’ll be cute.” 

“That’s the attitude.” Tony finished his smoothie, rinsed the bottle out, and chucked it into the recycling, “Clear out the kitchen by three, everyone. Skip lunch.” 

He turned to head out. Carol caught Steve staring at his rapidly disappearing shoulders, his expression set into something distantly stormy, a sadness mixing with annoyance. 

“Tony,” he said, when Tony was well out of earshot, and did not make to follow. 

Carol didn’t need to turn around to know that Jess and Janet were exchanging glances. 

* * *

The breakfast conversation moved on, quickly enough. Carol finished Thor’s bagel, and, sipping idly at her mug of coffee, returned to her room. Once, before her time on the team, the team had been small enough for each person to give each other individual presents. As the Avengers’ roster, old and new, active and retired, now numbered several dozen, that expectation had become impractical, and, by the time she had joined the team, they had already switched to a Secret Santa system, with a one-present-per-gifter. Still, close friends (not to mention the several dating and married couples now on the team) often broke the rules and got each other presents, and Carol found herself with longer holiday shopping lists every year. Now, she filled her arms with many clumsily wrapped packages: Jess and Rhodey, of course; smaller trinkets of appreciation for the foundational Avengers she had forged unbreakable bonds with in battle — Tony, Steve, Clint, Logan, the twins, Jess Jones — ; a tiny, flat package for Kamala, who was easy to make happy and looked up to her; and, finally, her actual secret Santa assignment, Stephen Strange, a man absolutely impossible to shop for. 

Her arms overflowing with precariously balanced boxes, Carol made her way down to the little bonsai tree. Several people had already left presents, and two figures were approaching from the other hallway. As she drew nearer, she recognized Tony and Janet. The mechanic was carrying a comically large number of boxes and bags (one for everyone, she guessed, as though honoring the previous tradition) on a rolling cart he must have pulled straight from his work shop. They were wrapped expertly in deep scarlet paper with gold trim; Carol wondered if he had used one of his machines for the purpose, or if hours in his workshop had simply left him nimble fingered enough to make easy work of the wrapping. Janet flitted around him, taking two steps to his one, her own hands full of gift bags, the shapes of which clearly betrayed that all of her presents were fabric-based. Carol wasn’t surprised. 

“What’d we say about the one-gift rule, Spaceface?” He called to her, depositing the biggest of his own boxes by the bonsai. 

She blinked at him, and scoffed, gesturing to his cart with her elbow, “You hypocrite.” 

“I’m a billionaire, Danvers, it’s different for me.” He paused, and then seemed to amuse himself a little, adding, “Just ask Congress.”

She rolled her eyes, kneeling down by the tree to make sure any boxes she dropped would land safety. 

Jan, who had set down her own bags, was now shaking and examining Tony’s boxes with some interest. “Hey,” she said, after a moment, “didn’t you get Cap anything?” 

Tony frowned, his eyes going fractionally wider than before. He was caught off guard, Carol could see, and reasonably so; there was no way that he could have expected Janet to look through each of the wrapped presents and notice the missing one. “I, er…” 

“Oh, don’t tell me you forgot!” Janet exclaimed, with more force than was strictly necessary. 

“No,” Tony said, woodenly, “I got Cap something.” 

Under her watchful eyes, he pulled a small wrapped box out of the inner pocket of his blazer. Janet took it, giving in a little shake. 

“Jan—“ Carol started, about to tell her to tone it down, but the shorter woman interrupted her.

“What’s in here?” She chirped. “Oh, it’s very small. Is it a compass? A watch?” 

“… Yeah,” Tony said, after a moment too long, “a watch. Cap broke his.” 

Janet beamed at him and set the box down with the rest of the red-wrapped gifts. “That’s nice. That’s thoughtful.” 

“Sure is,” Tony said, something of a PR-adjacent cheerfulness about his tone. 

“Who was your secret Santa?” Carol asked, cutting across the silence. 

“All the rule-breaking today, Danvers.” Tony tutted. Again, there was something forced about the way he was speaking, though he’d loosened up, clearly happy for the shift in conversation. “You’ll find out in due time.” 

“Well, I got mine a vase,” Carol said, miserably. “I don’t want to be the only awful gifter.” 

“We could surprise White Elephant it,” Tony suggested with a faint twinkle of amusement. 

“Nooo,” Janet protested at once, “mine’s personalized.” 

“No, I suppose not,” Tony allowed, and straightened up, taking hold of his cart, “I’ll see you ladies later. Gotta get this back to the workshop and set to work activating my almonds.” 

Carol raised an eyebrow at him.

“For the cake. It’s very important.” 

With those parting words, he was gone. Janet straightened out the gift boxes and set off cheerfully after him, leaving Carol alone by the tree. For a moment, her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the little red box he had wrapped for Steve. 

It looked a little small for a watch, though only barely. Why the special treatment, she wondered. Why not put it on the cart? Why had he been so reluctant to put it down with the others?

Cap and Tony had always been close, of course. Last Christmas, Tony had gifted Steve a large leather bound photo album, which Steve had clearly liked quite a lot. If she remembered correctly, the two of them had spent the afternoon pouring over it together, staying up long after the night. She couldn’t quite remember what Cap had gotten him in return. In her experience, though Steve had never been thoughtless, Tony tended to be the better gift-giver through a combination of an uncanny memory for personal details and near infinite resources. 

She caught Jess in the hallway and the two of them spent the next several hours catching up with teammate after teammate, staying briefly for card games in the living room, and, occasionally, making token efforts at tidying up. By three-thirty, when Jess navigated her towards the kitchen, the match-making business was out of her head entirely. 

The mountain, like any structure meant to accommodate a team of people, had a spacious kitchen with wide counters and deep fridges and ovens, meant to store and cook for dozens at the same time. Still, now, it managed to look cramped. Carol took in the scene person by person, her eyebrows rising slightly in amusement. 

Janet was chopping carrots, cutting board balanced precariously on her lap, with all the gusto of a woman who had never held a knife or seen a root vegetable. Carol wondered if she’d ever helped at Thanksgiving growing up and immediately dismissed the thought; the Van Dynes would certainly have had people cook for them. 

Thor was sweeping up glass right under Jan's fashionable, red-soled flats, his expression screwed up in concentration as he maneuvered the overlarge broom to pick up near-invisible slivers. Whatever had broken had been large, and he hadn’t yet gotten most of it. 

Steve fiddled with a meat thermometer that looked old enough to be his contemporary, his face screwed up in a frown of concentration. Behind him, Sam’s face echoed the expression almost exactly as he squinted at a colorful red and green box that advertised a plant-based roast. The photograph on the box was unappetizingly beige, showing a cross section of the oblong, perfectly round roast, which reminded Carol of some kind of alien egg. Sam mouthed part of the instructions to himself skeptically, as though committing to memory some fact he didn’t quite believe. 

Vision, content, was scrubbing a pot at the sink, glancing back periodically to check on potatoes boiling on the stove. Carol knew to attribute the four covered salads already sitting on the counter to him. 

Behind him, kneeling on a kitchen stool, Tony was using a cheese grater to delicately shred almonds one by one into a bowl, his face showing nothing but dedication to the task, an eagle-eyed sort of attention to detail, to perfection, that Carol assumed would take him far in baking. 

“Mistletoe, ladies,” he said quietly, without looking over at them. 

“What, in the doorway—“ Carol was cut off mid word by Jess surging up on her tip toes to peck her on the lips. 

“In the doorway,” Jess confirmed, sing-song, her voice betraying that she had expected this. 

“If we got caught,” Steve said, his voice distant and reflective, still focused on the thermometer, “it’s only fair you gals get caught. Careful of the glass, Jessica.“ 

“C’mon, man, that’s broken,” Sam abandoned the Tofurkey box and grabbed for Cap’s wrist with the clear intention of separating man and cooking implement, “Stark’s probably got something in the lab we can use instead, I’ll just—“ 

“If we threw things out every time there was something bright and shiny we could use instead, Sam,” Steve chided, stubbornly holding on to the thermometer, “we—“ 

“Who got caught under the mistletoe?” Jess interrupted hopefully. 

“Oh, Sam and Cap,” Tony replied with a shrug, “then Thor and I, which, entirely too much tongue, by the way, big guy. Then Jan and Vizh—“ 

“It’s in the doorway,” Sam summarized, “we were all coming in.” 

Janet caught Jessica’s eyes and shook her head. She deposited the chopped carrots in a bowl, and Vision casually took it from her, muttering a thanks. 

“I was talking about setting Cap up,” Janet declared, hopping down from the counter. 

“A noble goal, to be sure,” Thor rumbled obligingly, depositing broken glass into trashcan, “a warrior’s passion is only strengthened by the exchanges of passion with a worthy lover, aye.” 

Steve caught Carol’s eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh, but it was Tony who interrupted, an odd note of annoyance in his voice that had not been there before, “Double bag that, wrap that up in something, it’ll cut straight through the bag.” 

“It is in already,” Thor pointed out peevishly, “I am certain all shall be well.” 

“Well, we know who’s cleaning up the trash.” Tony set down his bowl of shredded almonds with a thump and crossed his arms on his chest, irritation written in every line of his body. “Oh, did I interrupt? By all means, Steve, if you’ve got something to say to all this, don’t let me stop you.” 

Cap turned to face him, making a noble effort at faking innocent incredulity, “What?” 

Tony only raised an eyebrow, unrelenting. “Well, just about everyone is here, aren’t they?” 

Silence. As used as she was to little tiffs between the co-leaders, Carol felt uneasy; normally, they didn’t tend to rub each other the wrong way on easy days like this, when the stakes were low, both of them willing to acquiesce more easily without lives on the line. She couldn’t figure out, too, what this was about. 

“Look, Tony,” Steve started, his voice slow and reasonable despite an edge on his face, some kind of caution, “I don’t know—“

But Tony interrupted him, his voice betraying a lack of patience. 

“I’m gonna go grab the powdered sugar,” he announced abruptly, pushing past Thor and Janet on his way out of the kitchen. 

Carol could see Steve biting at the inside of his own cheek, his face caught somewhere between contemplation and guilt. No one spoke until Tony was well out of earshot. 

“… Where’s he gonna get powdered sugar?” Sam asked, “Why would you keep that outside the kitchen?” 

Jess picked up easily, rolling with his change of topic, “Maybe Med. Can’t you use sugar water to disinfect—“ 

“Excuse me, Ms. Drew,” Steve put one large hand on her shoulder, pushing her lightly out of the doorway on his way out of the kitchen. Ridiculously, he was still holding the meat thermometer. 

They watched him go. 

“I’ve got the feeling things just got a whole lot more complicated,” Janet said drily.

Driven to action by the unease in the pit of her stomach, Carol pulled open the cupboard and began to set the table three hours too early, “Got the feeling this your cue to quit with all this.” 

“What could it be,” Thor wondered, completely missing her trying to step around him on her way out, “that troubles them so?” 

“There are many possibilities,” Vision offered vaguely, finally breaking his total concentration on the sides. 

Carol set a plate down with a bigger  _ thud  _ than was really necessary and scowled into the kitchen. “They’re not exploding at each other unless they’re pushed,” she pointed out, “it’s quiet. You let the sleeping dogs lie, and we’re all set for a perfectly nice Christmas.”

“Well, fighting with your best friend does not a nice Christmas make,” Janet pointed out, gesturing between Jessica and Carol to illustrate her point. 

“That’s their business,” Carol said firmly. “Let’s go, Jess.” 

She didn’t look back to make sure that Jessica was following, and felt a faint pang of disappointment when, stepping into the hallway, she realized she was alone. Few people lived full-time at the Mountain, but all current Avengers had rooms at the base. Carol’s longest stint living with the team here had been several weeks dealing with a possible alien invasion, and, on the heels of that, several times when she’d wanted to avoid everyone, times when going back home would have been too painful. Internally, she realized, she’d started to perceive spending long stretches of time here as a red flag, a subtle sign that something was fundamentally off. 

Still, though, it was a nice place. Her room had plenty of space to stretch her legs. Despite their inability to crack open any windows, the air inside was always fresh. When it wasn’t depressing, the white minimalism of the base could feel freeing, refreshing. It was, she reflected, the kind of environment that Tony, who spent so much of his time in sparsely decorated office buildings and modern, minimalist apartments, must feel at home in. For her, it hit an uncanny note, reminding her slightly of the living accommodations of the Air Force, slightly of the mansion. 

She made her way down the hallway where most private rooms branched off of, pacing aimlessly. She had not quite set her mind to track down Tony or Cap yet, uncertain she could really do much to help, when raised voices sounded somewhere to her right. Cap’s room. 

Carol had never been the kind of person to eavesdrop, especially not in situations like these; it seemed low, disloyal. Still, even as she set out to leave the hall, she couldn’t help overhearing the conversation that had so suddenly erupted. 

“So, what, at Christmas dinner, with everyone here?” Cap’s voice, clearly. 

“Well, you didn’t have any objection to doing it last Christmas, did you?” Tony.

“Tony, that was different!” 

“What, because it hadn’t been  _ anything,  _ because you could treat it like your dir—“ 

“You know that’s not—“ 

Carol quickened her step, shutting the door of the hallway firmly behind herself. Distantly, she could still hear raised voices, and she wondered if they knew how loud they were being; far too many people on the team had enhanced hearing for them to expect this conversation to remain private. 

Maybe they didn’t care. It wasn’t their first time screaming at each other in front of the team. Somehow, though, she couldn’t help feeling like the ill-fated matching making attempts from this morning were to blame.

She realized, then, that she’d come to view the health of Steve and Tony’s relationship as indicative of the cohesion of the team in general. They’d always been close in the early days, when team fights had been settled with a games of darts and quiet, frank conversations on the grass in from of the mansion, and now the memories took on the idyllic nostalgia of childhood, of a time before she’d known the deep flaws her parents had carried with them. The times when the two of them had gone throat to throat, even excluding the war, had been some of the worst of her life; she remembered the dear friends they’d lost, the team in shambles, a deep uncertainty about her place in the world. 

This past year, though she hadn’t consciously kept score, she’d noticed that they’d seemed to be doing well, back to the easy camaraderie of the days when she’d only just met them. Cap had mellowed somewhat with age, settled, listened more easily to Tony’s opinions even when he hated them. Tony, for his part, had dug his heels in less, sometimes edging on the side of conflict-averse that she never expected from him. She supposed two wars with close friends did that to a person, and immediately felt guilty. 

Dodging out of a conversation with Spider-Man, whose chipper attitude and pop culture references she generally adored but didn’t feel like stomaching right now, she ducked out of the living area of the mountain and through many sets of doors, rising steadily to the exit into the Arctic landscape surrounding the mountain. 

It was snowing. It snowed often here, on the Arctic Circle, and the snowy peaks were as beautiful as always. Tomorrow morning, if the crack forming between Steve and Tony didn’t spiderweb out onto the whole team, and if the ill-fated matchmaking attempt from the rest of the team didn’t finish them off, she wanted to drag everyone out here to make snow angels. In the old days, when they’d all been much younger and living at the mansion, the team had made a tradition of building snowmen, but they couldn’t have tried it here even if they wanted to; the mind boggling -58F of the Arctic Circle left the snow in cold, dry crystals, impossible to mush together. Carol had tried melting it into snowballs, before, and she wouldn’t throw the hardened, ice-like spheres she’d managed to put together at anyone except perhaps Logan. 

It was beautiful, in a white, cold way. Sitting down in the snow, Carol stared at the outstretched hand of the Progenitor, dead many centuries. Snow accumulated on his enormous fingers, each the size of a mountain peak itself, until the diagonally distributed weight of the snow piles made them slip and tumble into the icy sea below and the process began again. 

Distantly, she heard a door open and close. Footsteps crunched on the snow behind her. Carol turned and saw Cap, bundled up in his white and blue parka, the big fluffy hood pulled over his head, making his way towards her. His big red mittens seemed especially bright in the surrounding snow. 

Carol, who was used to the frigid cold of the vacuum of space, hadn’t thought to put on more than a hoodie. She sat up, white snow clinging to her warm back, and waved to him. Ankle deep in snow, he penguin-walked slowly up to her, but, clearly off-put by the cold, hard ground, refrained from sitting. 

“Lovely weather we’re having,” he said, his tone earnest, sheepish. 

Carol scooped up a handful of snow in her cupped hand and blew it up at him, “As dry as the fake stuff my mom used to set out around the tree.” 

“Yeah,” Steve said, “it’s different. First Christmas here, isn’t it?” 

Carol let a tiny bolt of photon energy leave her fingers, melting the snow around her hand. Both of them watched it re-freeze in a flat, spiky river of ice, still roughly mirroring the shape of her outstretched hand, one palm and five points. 

“First Christmas here,” she agreed, “new normal.” 

Cap stuck his hands in his pockets and shifted from foot to foot, clearly chilly. “We’ve had a lot of new normals,” he said, a faint note of some kind of sadness in his voice. “I’m glad we’re doing this.” 

“What, Christmas?” 

“Yeah, Christmas. Remember Christmas back at the mansion?” 

“I was just thinking about it,” Carol admitted, “simpler times.” 

“Simpler times,” he echoed, his expression withdrawn. “Five of us at first. Ten. Never felt like one little thing could send everything crumbling down, like there were  _ politics  _ on the team. You know what I mean?” 

“Yeah,” Carol said, staring down into the arctic waves below them, “I know what you mean.” 

“I just wanted things to feel like the old times, today,” Steve said, obliquely to her, “I didn’t want everyone’s eyes on us, I didn’t want questions. What’s wrong with that?” 

Before she could ask him what he meant, the door outside creaked open again. Both captains turned to see two figures emerging from the door; Clint, in a long purple coat that fit so badly Carol thought he must have nabbed it from Kate, and Thor, his blond locks billowing dramatically on the icy wind. 

“We thought you might want company!” Clint yelled. 

Steve reached down and scooped up a handful of snow, which crumbled uselessly in his hand. He watched the dry white crystals fall. “Lord in Heaven, what I wouldn’t give to nail those two with a snowball.” 

* * *

With both Steve and Clint freezing on their feet, it didn’t take them long to return inside the mountain. Carol couldn’t quite tell if she was sorry or not; on one hand, she’d planned to wallow in her melancholic nostalgia for a while longer, but on the other, she’d missed Clint, who she hadn’t worked with for more than a year at this point, and Thor’s company had a stable sort of cheer to it. In true Clint fashion, as the little group of four made its way steadily back down to the kitchen, he bitched steadily about his troubles and tribulations getting his presumably fragile Secret Santa gift all the way up to the base. Carol suspected the mystery object to be a mug; it was exactly Clint’s brand of heartfelt but minimum effort present. It was, however, impossible to interrupt him and ask; he’d pulled out his hearing aids and was rubbing the frozen metal to warm it up. 

As they neared the kitchen, Carol noticed Cap hanging back, his hands in his pockets and his eyes off to the side. He wouldn’t leave now, she knew; having taken on the duty of food preparation he wouldn’t abandon his team. 

“Chin up, old sport,” she said, elbowing him under the ribs. He jolted up, his eyes momentarily wide, and, seeing her smirk, shot her a little smile of his own. 

The kitchen was emptier than she’d left it. The several meats and non-meats had already been put pointedly into the oven. The oven timer was on. The little antique chicken timer was also on, clucking away on the counter. A digital timer had been hung up on the cabinet doors. The kitchen smelled of vanilla, cloves, and butter. Carol realized suddenly that she was hungry. 

Only Tony, who was now delicately marbling frosting, and Vision, who was beating eggs with a ferocity that negated the need for a mixer, remained in the kitchen. Only the former glanced up when they came in. The powdered sugar dusted on his mustache and beard reminded Carol of the dry white now outside. 

“The prodigal son returns,” he said, and the dry coolness of his tone, too, called the weather to Carol’s mind.

Steve frowned, crossing over the threshold and into the kitchen and leaned against the counter across from Tony, he eyes assessing. The bright red mittens still stuck out of his back jeans pocket. 

“He put them in without me,” Steve said, gesturing to the ham, turkey, and tofurkey in the oven. 

Tony turned back to his cake. “Sure did.” 

Steve picked up the kitchen timer and then set it back down. “Nice of him. Guess I’ll have to wash up.” 

“Guess you will.”

“Yeah,” Clint mumbled, stepping around Carol to back out of the kitchen, “I’m not here for the Cold War.” 

Steve, too, seemed to be having second thoughts. He glanced back at Thor and Carol, his eyes slightly calculating, like he was judging what he could say in front of them. After a moment, lamely, he settled on, “The cake looks nice.” 

“It’s not cake,” Tony said. Carol could feel a waver in his voice, cracks forming in the ice of his tone. She didn’t know what it would give way to. 

She knew Steve too well to miss his marginal hesitation, the way his shoulders shifted. She’d seen it too many times in combat; this was Captain America, and a split second decision had been made, a strategic risk. Automatically, she braced herself to break up a fight. 

“Looks like cake to me,” Cap said, and then reached over and stuck his finger into the frosting on top. Tony stared, wide-eyed and speechless for once, as he put the frosting’ed finger in his mouth, “Tastes like cake to me.” 

Tony squawked, scandalized. He wavered, for a moment, clearly teetering between two responses, and, in another unprecedented move for Tony, as far as Carol was concerned, seemed to choose the easier path of amused anger. 

He struck out at Cap lightly with the icing spatula, smearing white and blue on the front of his henley shirt. Cap, who had clearly had the time and reflexes to duck, let him.

“Well, Cap, I don’t know how you feel qualified to say, considering your taste is telling you it’s alright to get your  _ dirty paws  _ all over my—“ 

“They’re clean paws, actually.” Steve raised both hands, his fingers splayed, 

“Laughter,” Thor observed profoundly, eyeing the cake, “restored the fragile fabric of their lost camaraderie.” 

He hadn’t bothered to lower his voice; both Steve and Tony turned to look at them, their expressions nearly identical, both eyebrows raised. 

“What are you two looking at?” Tony asked. 

Cap, who looked a little embarrassed, hurried to agree, “This isn’t the petting zoo, folks.” 

“Well, we’re not being pet,” Tony said, “the, uh, the looking zoo.”

“That’s just a zoo,” Carol pointed out. 

“You get me, Spaceface,” Tony said, “scram. Finish setting the table, kids, we’re getting closer to the main event. And you, Steve—“ 

Cap turned on his heel to face him, and Tony casually scooped up a spoonful of icing and chucked it at his shirt. 

“— now that we’re even, you can go grate my almonds.” 

He held up a hand and wiggled his fingers. “I’ve got knuckle cramps.” 

Steve huffed and grabbed the bag of nuts, dutifully retreating. 

Carol stepped over the icing on the floor (not her mess, any of it) and around to the cabinet, pulling out the second set of nice dishes. She felt a little relieved and a little worried. On one hand, the peace established seemed fragile, arbitrary. On the other, their coleaders certainly wouldn’t be throwing icing at each other if this was about something serious.

Icing tossing, Jesus. Perhaps Janet had been onto something after all. 

* * *

Dinner was scheduled for six, but much of the crew, having been shooed out during lunch hours, showed up sooner. Many had changed into their costumes, as was traditional for team pictures, though just as many of the women had changed into glittery dresses and blouses, and a few of the guys hadn’t bothered to swap out their jeans and t-shirts. Seated between Jess and Wanda, Carol watched with some concern as the table filled up; she could feel they were about to run out of seats. Four people (Tony, Vision, Sam, and Steve) were still in the kitchen. Wanda was keeping her hand over the chair on her other side for Vision. Sam had thrown his jacket over a seat across from them. Cap, traditionally, sat at the head of the table, but in his absence, and the absence of other seats, Thor had taken the spot. Natasha had arrived late. After Clint had suggested they share a chair, and Bucky had counter-suggested that she sit on his lap instead, she’d somehow dislodged both men from their seats and taken one of them chairs, leaving them to share the other, leg to leg. Spidey, also later than most, had seemed content to just stick himself to one of the walls and balance a plate and cup precariously on his knees. 

Miles, Kamala, Sam Alexander, Riri, and Viv were the last in, arriving together. They didn’t seem particularly put out at having the lack of seats, and dragged the couch in from the adjacent living room area. 

The four cooks emerged out of the kitchen. With a quick mutter to Wanda to save her seat, Carol got up to help them carry the heaving trays of food they’d prepared out into the dining room area. The smell of cloves, turkey, and butter followed them out. 

Everyone was talking by now, the background chatter easily filling up the cavernous dining hall. Steve set the tofurkey pointedly in front of Wanda and clapped her on the shoulder. Carol couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the ghost of a laugh was evident in the shape of his lips as he talked. Sam set the mashed potatoes down in front of his own seat and sat down, clearly satisfied with himself. Vision arranged plates and trays on the table with a calculated efficiency. 

Having set down the plates he’d brought in, Tony drifted around the table, looking for a seat. Steve followed suit, making a beeline to Thor, but no luck; having found an open seat, he wasn’t likely to relinquish it. 

Cap left the room, heading for the living room, and returned carrying the leather loveseat, setting it down a few feet away from the couch the teens occupied. Tony lifted his eyebrows up at him, a questioning look Carol didn’t know how to read, and Cap shrugged, grabbing a plate for himself. 

With the two of them now seated on the loveseat, the half of the team that had been too polite to eat without everyone at the table dug in. The table-couch-loveseat divisions naturally formed bubbles in the conversation; Carol traded explosion stories with Thor and Wanda and watched Clint, riled by the disgusted reactions Bucky was happy to provide, play with his food. 

Spider-Man almost immediately spilled his drink. Several people attempted to show off by using some version of magic or telekinetic power to clean it up, resulting in a minor explosion of cranberry juice which drenched Jess’s shoes. Logan impaled chunks of ham on his claws to munch on. At one point, Carol found herself watching with amusement as Miles tried to talk Kamala and Viv into sticking their mashed potatoes to the ceiling. Cap’s last-minute intervention had prevented it. 

Spidey, Wanda, a Strange that was making it very clear he didn’t condone this sort of magical tomfoolery, and Brother Voodoo were attempting to recreate the spilled cranberry juice explosion. Jess, already doused once, was getting ready to whack each of them in turn. 

Amused but ready to claim plausible deniability, Carol filled her plate with more ham and potatoes and glanced around the room again, taking stock of the progression of events. The kids had finished eating. Miles had flopped back on his back, his knees hooked over the back of the couch, and Riri and Viv were together attempting to balance their empty plates on his upturned face. Steve and Tony, seated together on the loveseat, seemed destined to constantly bump each other; improperly, Steve held his knife in his left hand and his fork in his left, while Tony, raised right, held his fork in his left hand and held his knife in his right. This naturally led to a near constant bumping of elbows, and an argument about table manners. By now, Cap was somehow in possession of both knives, and Tony had retreated to sit on the back of the loveseat, his feet dangling down to rest on the armrest. Steve had sat leaning, casually, against the back of the loveseat. Primed by the conversation of the morning, Carol couldn’t help noticing that he had accidentally rested his head against Tony’s thigh. 

Steve caught Carol’s eyes and held them. Surprised by the sudden intensity of his gaze, she shrugged and smiled, glancing away. 

Soon enough, it came time for coffee and Tony’s not-cakes and the dried fruit weapon which Janet and Steve had insisted Christmas could not be done without. Their mouths and hands freer than before, most people got up to mingle. 

Janet hopped off her chair and stretched, tiny and catlike. She was keeping her eyes, Carol noticed, on the mistletoe, which had been hung on the other side of the room by the fireplace, where the crowd hadn’t quite migrated yet. She’d been sure that the matchmaking attempts had been abandoned after the fight in the kitchen, but the look had made her reconsider. And, sure enough, as Janet slipped out of the room, and returned once more carrying a large, square something under her arm, Carol remembered the promised photo album.

Stuffing a gingerbread cookie in her mouth, Carol stepped around the table to join Janet, Steve, and Tony at the loveseat, curious as to how this would go down. Without the matchmaking context (which the two thankfully lacked), the album would, at least, be a harmless, sweet gesture. 

By the time Carol got there, Janet was already handing the album over. Steve took it from her, and leafed through it, a little smile playing on his face. 

“Oh, this is wonderful, Janet, thank you. Oh, isn’t this just like the one—“ He turned to Tony, stopping on a page-wide spread of what Carol figured must be one of the first Avenger Christmas parties, well before her time. In it, Tony wore a Christmas hat and one of his vintage suits, his secret identity not yet revealed to the team. “— the one you got me, last Christmas?” 

“Well, she’s got better color coordination, but,” Tony leaned forward, taking a whiff of the open book over Steve’s shoulder, “mine smelled better.” 

“What, did you scent it with your perfume like a proper Edwardian lady, Tony?” Carol asked, raising an eyebrow, and Tony chortled. 

“You never know, maybe I did.” 

“Oh!” Steve said, brightly, “I know just who’ll want to see this. Kamala, hey! Catch!” 

He tossed the album in a smooth arc to the kids’ couch. Kamala’s outstretched hand plucked it out of the air halfway to its destination. “What’s this?” 

“Christmas party history!” Cap called back, “You’ll like it!” 

Janet met Carol’s eyes and grimaced. ‘It’s mostly them,’ she mouthed, wagging her chin in Steve and Tony’s direction. Carol shrugged back, as though to say,  _ Kamala’s gonna have fun with that, I’m sure,  _ and reached for another gingerbread cookie. 

“It’s been a year,” Cap said, looking only at Tony. Carol wondered exactly what he meant; they were just short of a year in the mountain, but that didn’t quite seem to match his tone. 

Tony glanced away, downcast. Where there had been anger, earlier in the day, Carol saw only resignation. 

“A year,” he agreed, “and still, it doesn’t quite feel real, does it? Feels like we’re still deciding if it’s worth committing to.” 

Guilt flashed across Cap’s features. 

“I told Clint,” he said, his tone suggesting that this was some kind of offering. 

Tony glanced up sharply, his eyes wide in surprise, “What? No, that’d be everywhere by now. Everyone would know.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Cap said, “months ago. And we wouldn’t have to deal with everyone now — it’d be old news.” 

“What are you talking about?” Janet asked. The little melodious clinks of her iced eggnog in her hand seemed as inquisitive as her tone. “What’s old news?” 

Steve took a deep breath, clearly gearing himself up to say something momentous, important, and then, from the other side of the room, Thor’s booming voice sounded. 

“Tis eight o’clock!” 

Tony exhaled sharply, something between relief and disappointment in his expression. He’d been holding his breath, Carol realized. “So it is.” 

Eight o’clock, traditionally, was when Secret Santa presents were exchanged. It had started, Carol assumed, when most people at the parties didn’t plan to spend the night, and remained so due to the dramatically different waking times of the Avengers. 

Carol followed the rest of the crowd down to the bonsai tree. Here, a satisfied Pietro and a slightly annoyed Jessica got caught under the mistletoe, with Thor and Vision immediately repeating their mistake. 

“Secret Santa gifts first, everyone,” Steve said, reaching into one of the pockets on his fanny pack, “I’ve got a list of all the pairings, if you’re having trouble finding yours.” 

And so, mostly following directions, the Avengers opened presents. Predictably, Strange pulled a face after unwrapping the vase that Carol had so painstakingly picked out for him, but when his gift to Jessica turned out to be nothing but a packet of mysterious white seeds and instructions for planting, Carol decided not to feel too bad about it. Spidey seemed ridiculously pleased with the “women love me, fish fear me” baseball hat given to him by Kamala. Steve pulled out and put on a huge wooly jacket from Janet, who, in her turn, had received a set of perfumes from Tony. Carol herself had gotten a bag of Chewbacca shaped brownie bites from Vision, which she intended to hide away ASAP and enjoy long past the holiday. She’d been vindicated in her guess about Clint’s present, too; he’d gotten Bucky a “World’s Worst Boyfriend” mug, though smudged and now-unreadable writing indicated that perhaps at one time “world” had been crossed out and “Natasha” written in. Still, Jess had elbowed Carol to laugh (“He had to know what that looks like, right?”). 

Only about half the gifts had been taken; the remainder was all rule-breakers, gifts given outside the exchange. As the secret Santa event finished up and thanks were given and received on top of presents, most people reached immediately for the pile of red-and-gold presents which dwarfed the rest. Tony Stark gave nice gifts, and there was one for everyone. 

As Carol pulled her parcel from the pile, unwrapping a recreation of her original aviator helmet, long-destroyed, she found herself shoulder-to-shoulder with Cap, whose square parcel was much smaller. Before he could touch the wrapping paper, Tony caught him by one red-gloved wrist. 

“You open that in front of everyone, winghead,” he said, “and there’s no hiding anymore.” 

Steve pulled off his cowl, baring his face. His messy hair and earnest expression made him look suddenly younger, almost boyish. 

“Alright,” he agreed, “I’m done hiding.” 

But instead of opening the present, he leaned in and kissed Tony on the lips, chaste and clearly just a touch self-conscious. As he drew back, Tony stepped closer, and Cap’s hands landed familiarly on hips. This, Carol realized, wasn’t a first kiss at all. 

Several people looked up at the same time, searching for any trace of mistletoe above the pair. Thor applauded, clapping his hands in great booming claps. Jess already had her pocket notebook out, skimming though bets. Janet clapped her hands to her mouth. 

“You were already together!” she cried, excited but accusatory, “You’ve been together since last Christmas!” 

Steve dropped one hand from Tony’s waist, breaking the embrace to turn to look at the team. He was pink in the face. “Guilty as charged.” 

Tony glanced meaningfully down to the little red-wrapped box, the one Janet had practically peer-pressured him into leaving out, and smiled. 

“And I think we would have gotten away with it too,” he said, “if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I worked two other prompts in here, but they were supposed to be a surprise. :P I hope you liked it, airplane! 
> 
> So what was in the box? I'd urge you to keep in mind, dear reader, that a year is, like, ten years in Tony relationship years, and that canon has my back on this. 
> 
> Big thank you to to my beta! you know who you are (and I'll put your name in once the event is over) and I love uuu!!


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